Figure of Eight
by yuffiehighwind
Summary: This is a story about sex, magic, and being young and stupid. This is the story of Rincewind before he became a Wizard.
1. Prologue

_**Story Summary:**__ This is a story about sex, magic, and being young and stupid. This is the story of Rincewind before he became a Wizard._

_**Story Notes: **__In this alternate history of the Discworld, Rincewind enrolls in Unseen University when he is 21 years old. He spends much of the time before that trying to get laid. Cross-posted to Archive of Our Own. Becomes sexually explicit after Chapter 3, "The Seamstress." See the bottom of this page for more notes. Incomplete._

* * *

**Figure of Eight: Prologue**

_Rincewind always knew his parents had run away before he was born. Even his mother._

"Look, I'm not keeping it."

Jeena, exhausted and drained, held the boy reluctantly. The midwife had to practically force her to feed him. The baby suckled and Jeena winced, not from the discomfort, but as though there was a bomb against her breast. As if carrying the child for nine months weren't torture enough, the hefty responsibility of raising him lay ahead.

The baby's grandfather, against tradition, propriety or any expectations, entered the chamber to check on the newborn and sat at the end of the bed. After years of estrangement, her coworker's cousin's barber had informed him of the pregnancy.

His first instinct was to find the baby's father and kick the stuff out of him. That would be difficult, however, since Jeena had been moonlighting as a "seamstress." Kicked out of her brothel when her belly began to swell, she had to take up the other kind of sewing, and she was rubbish at stitches.

He thought it unfortunate Jeena's mother had already passed on and couldn't handle this female stuff herself. But being told that not one but _both_parents wanted nothing to do with the scrawny infant was the worst possible news and reignited his paternal instincts.

"He'll die without his mother."

"I'll find a wet-nurse."

"You can barely afford rent. How can you hire a wet-nurse?"

"I'll put it up for adoption."

Now that was a feasible idea. Jeena locked eyes with her father and saw him seriously consider it. He thanked the gods she hadn't asked _him_ to raise it.

However...

"What couple would take a…a _seamstress_' street rat?"

Jeena didn't even flinch at either insult. She had always called a spade a spade.

"He'll have to go into a group home," he said. "One of the guilds."

"Not if you take him."

So she'd said it after all. Her statement hung stewing in the air. They sat for a while in uncomfortable silence.

The boy took a breath and made indiscernible noises. Jeena didn't even know how to hold him right.

"He stopped. What do I do?"

"How should I know?" Her father averted his gaze as she adjusted her breast, trying to get the baby to latch back onto it.

"I think the thing wants me to change it. Or burp it, or something."

Her father turned to look at them.

"He just wants to be held by his mother."

"Hmph."

"Let me hold him, then."

Jeena gladly handed the child to him. Swaddled in a cheap, coarse blanket, his skin was red and puffy, his lips wet with milk. The baby already had tufts of ginger hair and squinted up at his grandfather with wide, black eyes. So small and helpless, he thought. How could anyone possibly abandon him now?

"I'm going back to work as soon as I can," his daughter said.

The thought used to disgust him, but he'd accepted it long ago. Apparently the girl had found the one thing she was good at and he couldn't begrudge her that. Unfortunately, she wasn't very good at other, more conventional professions. And clearly she wasn't very good at counting.

"And what of the babe?"

"The other girls can take care of him until I find a good orphanage or something."

"The city has _one_ good orphanage. At Small Gods."

"Ah. Then it won't be a very long search."

"What shall you name him?"

Looking into the boy's eyes gave him a warm, gooey joy deep inside, like when he'd first held Jeena.

She shook her head. "I don't know. You think of something."

His unnamed grandson began to open and close his mouth and murmur softly. Still hungry. He reluctantly handed the baby back to his annoyed daughter. He stood up.

"Well if your son makes your skin crawl so much, you get those other girls over here right now. Because I'm taking a walk."

"The same kind of walk you took when I was little?"

She said it very softly and casually but it felt like a slap.

"The very same, my dear."

_For now_, he thought.

Exiting, he bumped into the midwife, and Jeena called out one last thing.

"Would you…Would you find his father and kick his arse for me?"

That was something he could agree to.

* * *

_**Additional Story Notes:** (1) I'm American, so I apologize in advance. This fic uses a mashup of British and American spelling/dialects. (2) For reasons unknown, the Internet decided Rincewind was a redhead. (3) The state of Rincewind's virginity is muchly contested. (4) When Rincewind enrolled at Unseen University is a mystery. Going by typical educational practices, he would have been 17. One fan-made timeline I found suggested he was 24, while another said he was 14. In this fanfic he is 21. (5) Virgin or not, there is the question of whether Rincewind could get a date in the first place. (6) Perhaps the History Monks made a mistake. Perhaps this takes place in the other leg of the Trousers of Time. Perhaps it's just impossible for me to write Gen. (7) I'm sure you already know how significant the number eight is to wizards._


	2. Chapter One: The Girl

_**Chapter Notes:**__ Inexplicit underage sex._

**Chapter One: The Girl**

Childhood in the poorer areas of Ankh-Morpork cultivated generations of hard-edged pragmatists. Your parents did their best to support you, and you did your best to support yourself, sometimes by begging, stealing, conning or all three. _Street rats_, you were called. Reading and writing skills didn't progress much past primary school level. Then again, few of your middle class neighbors continued past it either.

However, there was always the potential to learn an honest trade. There was also the option to become a professional criminal, especially in The Shades, but even the law-abiding citizens of Ankh-Morpork could be cruel survivalists. Kids could receive harsh beatings just for backtalk, but outside their parents' watchful gaze would resume acting like urban savages.

Some had no parents. Any number of futures awaited the children overcrowding Ankh-Morpork's orphanages, and Rincewind's began in one tucked away next to the majestic Temple of Small Gods.

Most of the city's orphans were left on trade guilds' doorsteps, which was preferable, because they could begin training in a profession from youth. Parents like Jeena didn't have such foresight, however, and some children weren't so lucky. Rincewind's grandfather still made certain the boy grew up with a consistent, safe place to eat and sleep. Unlike living in a family where every member that could work _had_ to, where playtime mostly involved fist fights, ferocious football matches and other mean games, the boy was enrolled in a dame school and given free time to visit the neighborhood library.

This particular library was actually an old used-book store in someone's basement. The selection was extremely limited, especially in contrast to Unseen University's grand, magical collection (said to exist in L-Space and contain multiple dimensions of books). Few citizens even knew it was there, but its collection was enough to progress a kid up into sixth form territory.

Like Rincewind, who had grown from a scrawny baby into a scrawny adolescent.

He liked the library very much, and kept a book or scroll on hand at all times, which wasn't so popular with other boys. Often bullied and growing tired of it, Rincewind developed the instinct to flee when confronted with any difficult situation or conflict. However, if flight wasn't possible, he gradually learned how to successfully talk himself out of trouble. People started leaving him alone, but this also never gave him an early opportunity to prove his bravery_._ Time indoors left him very pale, sharply contrasting with his red hair, and even well into puberty (or adulthood, for that matter), he could never grow a proper beard.

His only male role model growing up, other than the Temple priests, was his grandfather, who occasionally spent time with him but vanished once he was a teenager. His family sometimes sent him cards a year too late, but withdrew any other affection. Rincewind felt he had been unlucky from the moment he was born. Nobody contested this.

Young Rincewind picked up a job here and a job there, whatever he could get to support himself as he dreamed of a life filled with magic and power. He got better at fast talking and even faster walking. (_Street rat_…) Well, this street rat had big dreams, a growing vocabulary in at least three languages (he was working on Quirmian, Ephebian, and Borogravian, but planned on learning more obscure ones if he got accepted at Unseen University), and his luck was changing.

He had met a girl.

Rincewind first learned of wizards and magic as a small child from picture books. Colorful, detailed illustrations of sourcerors summoning untold wells of magic. His favorite was of a man wrapped in a billowing red cloak overlooking a stormy sea, calling lightning down onto a capsizing ship. As a kid, he met his first real wizard, and while he was surprised to learn they looked like ordinary old men, he assured himself they were merely disguising their true arcane powers to blend in.

As he grew older, Rincewind wormed his way into neighborhood taverns and encountered Unseen University's students. They weren't as conspicuous as wizards, having no pointy hats, but they did look the part - nerdy, asthmatic types clad in uniform blue robes. They were almost always getting ridiculously pissed, but there was no shame in that, their being mere apprentices.

When he turned sixteen, his orphanage had taken in more children and turned Rincewind's group out, but still hadn't bothered to evict him from the temple's stables. Passing through a service inside Small Gods one day, he first encountered The Girl.

She was quite plain. Mousy, with limp, sandy-colored hair. Nothing to get too worked up about, but she was wearing a _very_ nice, very _tight_, white dress that hugged her curves _here_ and _there_ in such a way it stopped him short. He stared, and she turned from her conversation with a priest to look back.

Rincewind didn't yet know that a life of wizardry was a life devoted to celibacy and quiet reflection. (And drinking, and eating…) He would later find out, but UU students weren't told the real reason for this mandate. They were told that the company of women suppressed their magical abilities. The truth was, while ordinary folk could breed wizards, wizards' children were _all _born wizards, and wizards had the highly dangerous risk of breeding sourcerors. This occurred in patterns of eight, and while there was no way to tell if Rincewind had been the eighth son of an eighth son, his professors dismissed the possibility outright. But considering his father's exploits, it wasn't an impossibility either.

The boy wished he could cast a spell to make her walk over and kiss him.

Rincewind had a gangly body, a face that called rodents to mind, hair that stuck up at all sorts of angles, and the self-conscious slouch of a born coward. His friends, if you could call them that, had already had their first kisses, if not more. But it was hopeless, and Rincewind resigned himself to never attracting any girl, ever, even if he wanted to. Which at this point, he desperately wanted. Often. Usually at night.

The moment passed and she walked away. Out of sight and out of his life.

Except she hadn't. The Girl was training to be a priestess and started working at Small Gods on a regular basis. He watched her every day and made a point of postponing his usual odd-jobs so he could do chores around the temple instead. (His poor excuse of a sweeping technique would appall Lu-Tze, but that's neither here nor there.)

What felt like centuries later, he finally worked up the courage to talk to her. She shocked him by approaching first.

"You're Rincewind, aren't you?"

"Yes, and you are…?"

"Don't pretend you don't know me. I see you all the time. Staring."

"I beg your pardon, miss."

She laughed like tinkling crystals.

"It's fine. You know, I've been watching you myself."

He stopped leaning on his broom and straightened his posture.

"I'm flattered, miss."

"You don't have to be so formal. I get enough formality at my job. It's tiresome."

He nodded, trying to avoid looking at her chest. She was wearing a navy skirt with a bodice surprisingly low-cut for such a modest lady. He tried to recall what she was wearing the day before. Didn't it cover a lot more skin?

His grip on the broom slipped and she laughed again. Oh gods, she was laughing at him!

"It's a hard habit to break around here," he said. "Believe me, I'm very different outside the grounds. It's always a relief to get out and be able to curse again."

"Then let's go out," she said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Maybe you can teach me a few."

"Uh…Yeah. Let's go. I'll show you the sights."

Besides the Temple of Small Gods, Rincewind was familiar with very few interesting sights appropriate for a young lady. So the boy took her to his favorite Klatchian takeaway, his favorite bookshop, the Dwarf Bread Museum, and Sator Square, just outside the gates of Unseen University.

The gates were covered up by several market stalls and hanging merchandise, but beyond it they could see the tops of the majestic old buildings that made up UU's campus. The precariously tilted, impressively tall Tower of Art jutted up, defining the scene.

The Girl gazed upwards, shielding her eyes from the sun. She could just hear the ravens gossiping. (Animals that lived in the Tower of Art developed speech from the ambient magic. What they said was mostly chatter and argument, sometimes about what humans they had successfully bombed that day.)

"How do they get in and out, if it's all shut up like that?" she asked.

"I expect they magic themselves in somehow. Students use a shortcut, though."

"Oh?"

"I never went down there myself. I fear it would be at the very least disrespectful and at worst, get me turned into a frog."

"Aren't the students sneaking in and out of the university after curfew being disrespectful?"

"I expect they get a few passes for good behavior."

"And if not? If _we_ were students, wouldn't sneaking _in_ be less of a crime than sneaking _out_?"

Rincewind didn't yet know that women were forbidden from the university grounds, and he put her flawed logic aside - sneaking in was tantamount to trying to steal wizard secrets.

She looked up at him expectantly, eyebrows raised with a mischievous expression. He couldn't blow an opportunity to impress her.

The boy leaned closer and whispered in her ear, "You want to get a peek inside, don't you? You can hardly contain yourself."

She bit her lip and nodded.

Emboldened, he brushed some strands of hair out of her eyes, letting his hand linger on her cheek just a second too long.

"Okay, let's do it."

The Girl broke into smile and clapped excitedly.

"Is this it?"

The two teenagers stopped at the mouth of a dark alleyway not far from Sator Square, just outside a tavern from which Rincewind frequently saw drunk students stumble.

He motioned her forward. "Yes. Come on."

The Girl grabbed his hand, threading their fingers together. It was a strange new sensation, another person's hot fingers all tangled up in his own. Her palm was sweaty and it wasn't very comfortable, but he pulled her down the dimly lit alley. Squashed between two buildings, they found the ancient brick wall. Too tall and sheer to climb, it seemed it would not yield its secrets after all.

"How do they get up there?" the Girl asked.

Rincewind shook his head. "Beats me. I always see them jumping it. There must be some way. Maybe by magic?"

"Perhaps it's the bricks."

"What about them?"

"What if you pulled them out to make footholds?"

Rincewind tried to find the loose bricks but soon gave up.

"This is a bad idea."

"What? No! I'm having fun."

"It's just as well. Imagine how much trouble we'd be in."

"But that's the thrill of it!"

She grasped his collar and pulled him close. Rincewind lightly placed his hands on her waist, but with more force, she backed him up against the wall. He hit his head.

"Ow!"

The Girl pressed her body against his. _Ohhh, the heat…So much better than just holding hands! _She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

He turned his head and her lips met chin.

Rincewind's eyes refocused on the opposite wall. Oh, no! He'd blown it already! But her soft kisses on his neck were even better first kisses than he could have imagined. Electric pleasure coursed down his spine. She moved her attentions progressively downwards to his collarbone. He could feel his…ahem…spirit lift and swell. Oh gods, what kind of priestess _was_ this?

"What…ah…what god do you worship, again?"

"Petulia," she murmured.

_Ohhh dear. _The goddess of Negotiable Affection. What had he gotten himself into?

She saw his panicked look and said, "I'm just kidding, Rincewind."

It didn't feel like a joke, though, when she kissed his mouth. Her tongue brushed his lips and he melted. His first kiss, and it had been a damn good one already. Okay, so it was a little weird fumbling to kiss her back as she had, open mouthed and tongues touching, but surely they would have time in the future to practice.

He couldn't let on that he didn't know what on the Disc he was doing, though.

"Maybe we should, uh, m-move this somewhere more...private?" he stammered.

"This _is_ private."

"More romantic?"

"It's okay, Rincewind. You have me already."

Huh. Now he couldn't let on that he had wanted to court her properly.

"Yeah, about that…"

She pulled away, looking puzzled.

Before he could stop himself, he asked, "Why…why _me?_"

Looking hurt, she shook her head.

"What do you mean?"

Now that his foot had said hello to his mouth he asked, "I mean, why pick _me?_ This sort of thing just doesn't happen to me. In fact, _nothing _ever goes well for me." (Rincewind had no idea how true that would prove to be later in his life.)

Groping for an answer, she said, "You're…well…_nice._"

Not handsome, not sexy, not funny or brave. He was _nice_. She sounded sincere. A boy never wants to hear that, however, when he wants so badly to prove himself a man.

Receiving no reply but a furrowed brow and blank stare, the Girl stepped forward and pressed her lips to his, reigniting their fire. He shut his eyes and held her as she resumed kissing every exposed bit of skin. Then she slid her hands underneath his shirt and he froze.

"Isn't that what _I'm_ supposed to be after?" he joked.

"Sorry, boy, but I'm leaving my clothes _on_. We're in a strange place, in a grungy alley, and I'm a lady."

"You're definitely a lady."

Rincewind was getting slightly better at kissing, then noticed she had lifted his shirt up and was running her fingertips along the waistband of his breeches.

He caressed her hair and neck, and _then_ noticed she was unbuttoning his fly and…and…

Her palm rubbed against him and he jerked away in surprise before instinctively leaning into her touch. She rubbed more purposefully.

This was much more than Rincewind had ever expected to happen so quickly and he wondered what goddess the Girl _did_ worship. He figured it had to be a goddess. One with a sense of humor.

Then she_ tugged_ just _there_ and _ohhh gods…_He had touched himself before, but it had never felt like this.

The Girl stroked hesitantly, slowly and then at much faster pace. He stopped kissing her and just leaned back against the bricks, eyes shut tight.

"I…I…I'm going to warn you right now that I'm not going to last very long."

"Shhh. It's okay. I want you to."

"To…?"

"Yes."

And he did.

Rincewind led her back out into the brightness of Sator Square. They wandered from stall to stall, talking and laughing, picking up some food before finally heading back to the temple.

The boy could hardly believe his luck. With good reason, because this was one of the last times The Lady, as she was sometimes called, would smile on Rincewind for a very long time.

Back at the temple, he caught a glimpse of himself in one of the hall's wide mirrors. Still homely. Still lanky and awkward. Yet the Girl couldn't keep her hands off him. He looked at the image of the two of them side by side, and in this light she really was homely herself. Perhaps it wasn't an unlikely union after all.

But she was cute when she smiled.

"Do you have to leave soon?" he asked.

She shook her head. "My father gave me permission to stay here overnight. He thinks I'm working."

"Or praying," he added.

Tilting her head, the Girl said coyly, "I could kneel if you like."

Rincewind shot her a puzzled look and she let out another tinkly laugh.

Just then, a group of pilgrims filed into the foyer. They swarmed around the two teenagers, discussing Offler the Crocodile God at length and wondering if they'd walked into the wrong temple. (The lack of blood or gore was a telling sign.)

Someone jostled by and hit Rincewind in the shoulder. Another bumped into the Girl. Clearly they needed a change of scenery.

"Come with me," Rincewind said, taking her hand.

"This is where you sleep?"

The Girl had temporary lodgings inside the temple, in the wing clergy and guests kept small rooms. It left her worried and shocked Rincewind was left with animals for flatmates.

"No, I sleep up here," he said, climbing a ladder above the stalls.

The boy pulled her up to a loft with a sloped roof that had more space than was visible below, in which he kept books, quills, scrolls, small pieces of furniture, lanterns, food, and other miscellany. A stuffed toy lamb accumulated dust in the corner. Rincewind's bed was on the floor. He'd made it as much like a real bed as he could, with linens and a pillow. It was still hard wood, though, underneath the straw he had to change often since bugs and mice started building homes in it.

"Sit and make yourself comfortable," he said, gesturing at the bed.

The Girl sat down, bunching her skirt up, revealing white ankles. It was the first time he'd caught a glimpse of the bare skin underneath.

The two teenagers sat in awkward silence so Rincewind leaned over to grab a deck of cards. The Girl nudged him with her foot. He turned around to see her laid out on the bed, half sitting up on her elbows. Her breasts threatened to pop out of her bodice any second.

"It's my turn," she said.

_Wow_, he thought. _She does NOT beat around the bush._

_Ahem. So to speak._

Rincewind lay down and embraced her. It was much more comfortable here in the straw than back in the alley. He kept his hands respectfully above her waist, but she guided them underneath her skirt, between her legs. He realized she wasn't wearing any knickers and pulled his hand away with a start.

Looking hurt, she said, "If you don't want…"

He cut her off, nodding fervently. "Oh, I want."

Rincewind didn't know anything about women, and would forget much over the years. Luckily, the Girl gripped his wrist and guided his touch. He felt moist heat, tangled hair and bumps he hadn't even known existed. And then there it was...

She gasped. He didn't know what would feel good for her so he watched her face carefully, listening closely to her quickening breath. She felt just like a pie fresh from the oven, if a pie could clench its muscles.

Rincewind knelt between her bent legs to get a better angle. Placing his other hand on her thigh, he felt her whole body trembling. The Girl closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip; her hands clutched at the straw.

"Am I hurting you?"

Sounding embarrassed, she replied, "No, no, not at all."

"Oh. Good."

After a while, the girl started to squirm and moan.

Oh, gods, this was too cruel to watch. He could be inside her doing this himself. Rincewind lay down on top of her and broached the subject carefully. Her eyes opened in surprise.

"Do you think we could…I mean, if you are, uh…wanted to…were ready to…?"

It was awkward trying to find a good position like this without crushing her, especially since he had never done it before. He held himself up, elbows scraping the wooden floor.

The Girl looked uncertain and processed his question. Finally, she replied, "Um…ok."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

"That's a definite okay?"

She nodded.

Rincewind smiled and kissed her. The Girl was still (barely) constrained by her bodice. He untied it and focused his attentions on her chest, eliciting pleased little noises. He was impatient, however, so he made the executive decision they remain clothed for whatever came next.

The boy sat back to lift her skirt over her knees. He was pulling down his breeches when he heard, "Stop."

"What is it?"

"There's something you should know."

A _virgin_.

Rincewind wondered what would ever possess a priestess to give up her virginity. Nobody in Ankh Morpork sacrificed virgins anymore. (Okay, _few_ people sacrified virgins anymore.) Worshippers sacrificed lots of sheep and goats, or donated gifts of food and wine. (Which the priests ended up eating and drinking, but the public didn't need to know that.)

Perhaps, if she wasn't being married off, her…_status _didn't matter. Perhaps her profession assumed virginity by default and didn't check that sort of thing. The Girl had either felt so desperately attracted to him and saw there was no risk, or…or…

A voice at the back of his mind told him, _She decided to get it over with. With someone nice._

The sexiness and thrill of the situation plummeted several degrees. There was a lot of pressure on him, now, to do something he had never done and knew little about, and to do it well. Because admitting to the Girl he was also a virgin was too embarrassing.

"Oh."

She covered her face with her hands.

"Oh, no, now you don't want me!"

"That's not it."

"I know it's a lot to take in."

"I'm sure it is," he joked.

She ignored the comment. "And it's going to hurt, I just know it!"

How in the world were you supposed to respond to _that?_

"We don't have to do it. We can do that other stuff. You seemed to be enjoying it."

"But I want to…_do it, _you know?"

"I'm confused," he said, and thoroughly was. "Do you really want to or not?"

"I do, but I'm…"

He knew what she was going to say next and before he could catch himself, told her, "You needn't worry. I am too."

"Really? Because I thought…"

Rincewind backtracked.

"For _us._ For _you._ You know what I mean. You were going to say 'scared,' right?"

She nodded.

"It's going to be okay. If you want to do it with me, I…I won't hurt you, if I can help it."

"It won't hurt?"

"Well…"

He was at a loss. Could you coerce a girl into sex if she coerced you first? Was that okay? He was sitting in a moral grey area.

"I'm told it hurts the first time," he said.

The self-assured girl who'd had her hands down his pants an hour earlier was shaking in his bed with equal parts anticipation and fear. Rincewind felt horrible.

She took a deep breath and lay back down.

Oh gods, he was a terrible person. He was most certainly a horrible person and he was going to Hell. Swallowing shame, he reached between her legs with one hand and stroked himself with the other.

Positioning himself, he joked, "I should probably warn you that I'm not going to last very long."

It didn't elicit a laugh this time.

It was now or never, so he entered her. He met some resistance and she cried out in pain, clutching his shoulders. Her eyes teared up so he gently kissed her face.

"Shh, shh. It's okay."

"It hurts," she whispered.

The Girl looked much too young and vulnerable for this. Rincewind's conscience and libido competed for space.

"I know. I know. Shh."

Not sure what to do, but figuring she wouldn't know the difference, he pulled out a little and thrust in again.

_Oh_.

_So that's sex._

He did this a few more times. Lying on top of her was still awkward and he prayed she didn't mind.

Thrusting faster, he thought, _Ohhh. No, that's sex. That's definitely sex._

_I'm having sex_!

Rincewind glanced down at the Girl, whose blank gaze was directed someplace over his left shoulder. She looked more relaxed and had stopped trembling. He pecked her lips and she gave him a shaky smile, looking up at him not with pleasure, but with some affection, which was better than nothing.

Afterwards, they lay beside each other in uncomfortable silence. It had been easy to get dressed, since they hadn't taken their clothes off in the first place.

The Girl still wasn't saying anything. That bothered him.

"How…how are you feeling?"

She rolled on her side to look at him.

"I'm okay."

He gave her a nervous smile.

"That was very good," he said, struggling for the right words. "You're very beautiful. And you feel _very, very_ good."

"Thank you." After another beat, she said, "I thought I'd feel _different."_

"Me too," he said without thinking.

The Girl gave this some thought and came to a realization.

"You're a virgin!"

He looked at her sharply.

"Not anymore!"

"I knew it!"

"Look, I didn't tell you because I thought you'd laugh at me."

"Why would I laugh? It would have made me feel a lot better about it, actually."

"And now that you know?"

"It explains a lot."

Rincewind sat up. Indignant, he asked, "Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

She didn't answer. Instead she stood up. He couldn't see, but she was probably rolling her eyes.

What usually happened next? he wondered. Rincewind grasped for options.

"Heeyy, so…Do you want to stay here tonight? We could…do other sexy stuff. Or play Cripple Mister Onion."

"I'd rather sleep in my own bed, if it's all the same to you," she said, gathering up her skirt and climbing down the ladder.

Disappointed, Rincewind leaned over the side.

"I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Maybe. Have a good night."

Her footsteps faded and Rincewind lay back in bed, hurt by her indifference.

Wasn't this sort of thing usually the other way around?

Then again, that was always the way of things. Nothing ever went well for him, and he was always just a _friend._

And he was_ nice._


	3. Chapter Two: The City

**Chapter Two: The City**

Rincewind evolved from pimply teen into a somewhat handsomer twenty year old, though only in very particular, flattering light, and only from one side.

He had a fairly trim beard and had grown his red hair out to shoulder length. If he leaned down over a book, his hair fell in his face and he had to keep tucking it back behind his ears. He had meant to get it cut, but had a recent, traumatic trip to the local barber that put him off. (The barber doubled as a surgeon, and was in the middle of a procedure when Rincewind sauntered through the front door, then ran back out again screaming.) The upside was women mistook him, at first, for being more attractive than he really was.

Rincewind was still a wiry nerd and had continued his language education by grabbing any texts from abroad he could find. (He was now familiar with Sumtri and Trob.) He still had his eye set on Unseen University, but had discovered that the only path to acceptance was via a sponsor. Who would sponsor him? His futile search had left him depressed, most nights, despairing that wizardry was only a pipe dream.

Taverns finally started serving him drinks when he was eighteen, and the clientele in the safer establishments turned up better job opportunities. He never worked full-time for more than a couple of months, but got by enough to rent a small one-room flat in a boarding house. Sleeping in a temple's stables when you weren't even a member of its clergy or congregation had become difficult to explain. It was just as well he got a real bed, desk and wardrobe, though he'd always have to share an outhouse and a bath with a denizen of other weird lodgers.

Skipping forward several decades, it should be noted that Rincewind's urban experience and street smarts far surpassed those of even the highest ranking wizards at Unseen University. His continued existence, however, depended upon not much more than steering clear of danger, which for the majority of his midlife was absolutely unavoidable. Danger could find him anywhere, even if he were peacefully sitting at home drinking a cup of tea. Destiny or something equally cruel had decided it was up to Rincewind to save the Disc multiple times.

At twenty, he couldn't imagine living such a life. Yes, in his fantasies, his enemies could be vanquished quite easily with a well-placed fire ball or lightning bolt. Perhaps he'd be merciful and turn them into ferrets. One thing every member of Unseen University had, however, was more magic than Rincewind could ever hope to master. He seemed to have no magical bone in his body. Even an apprentice wizard had more magic in his pinky toe.

Women were regarded at the university as strange, alien creatures who mainly cleaned or cooked - serving breakfast, supper, and tea. These women were typically of the older persuasion and thus easier to tolerate. (Even after a century, you could remember your dear old Mum.) Any of the younger, perkier servants left the wizards flustered and dashing off to take cold showers.

Women were banned from the university not just because of the elephant in the room - wizards were cloistered, celibate and this had been a mandate for centuries - but because of the prevailing belief that female magic-users were somehow lesser. Powerful witches existed, however, harnessing magic and protecting the Disc from threats as well as, if not better than, any man. The witches begrudgingly looked at wizards as magical equals, but also as daft old men who meddled with the fabric of the multiverse when it should be left alone.

Rincewind unknowingly proved to be the exception to the rule that all wizards acted clueless and tongue-tied around females. He quite often encountered women - vendors, barmaids, cooks, washerwomen, fishmongers, streetwalkers, priestesses, people's Mums. He lived in Ankh-Morpork and women were unavoidable, but they typically avoided him.

* * *

After the eye-opening tryst with the young priestess, Rincewind put any hope of getting a date out of his mind and concentrated on thinking of women as men with a couple of anatomical differences.

Not that his eye wasn't drawn to them. A healthy young libido couldn't be completely suppressed. Rincewind could admire a beautiful woman from a distance quite well. He could even talk to her, but with limited charm and no looks to speak of, he figured it was pointless trying to pull her.

He went several years looking without touching, until he wised up and started patronizing the more conservative, co-ed taverns, where innkeepers' daughters tended to bring round their friends. (The glaring implication of this decision made him feel awful, but he went anyway.)

While Rincewind was still awkwardly respectful to women sober, he was much more forward when he was drunk. However, he soon discovered that few girls responded positively to the old "This drink is on me" come on. The best he could hope for was a thirsty one using it as an opportunity to get some free beer.

He found he could sidle up to a girl getting pissed with her friends, if she were separated from the pack long enough for him to start a conversation. Walking up to a tight knit group of women clustered around a table discussing whatever it is that women talk about was social suicide. But one girl may twirl her hair and look up at him in the dim light, intrigued by a conjuring trick or multilingual quote. ("Where is the bathroom?" in Quirmian sounded as sensual as any pillow talk.)

(Rincewind hated himself for performing sleight-of-hand tricks. He felt dirty disrespecting true magic, but girls enjoyed it, he was pretty good at it, and desperate times called for desperate measures.)

Get that girl away from the herd, and a few more beers in her, and he was golden. (Matching her beer for beer, of course, to assuage his nagging conscience.)

But her girlfriends would invariably return, dragging their pissed friend home and snickering at Rincewind, wishing him a sarcastic goodnight. The girl may graze his hand with hers, looking back over her shoulder longingly as they pushed her out the door.

It was the times he tried to connect with the other gender - a new employer, a new roommate, or a shoulder to cry on (It was as difficult for Rincewind to make friends as it was to pull a girl) - that he met the women he'd collectively come to remember not-so-fondly as Trouble.

* * *

_**Story Notes: **I had more chapters after this but they are currently in fragments. My 2 AM-addled brain went "What the hell" and posted these three, plus chapter seven, The Waitress, anyway._

_To be continued..._


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